Despite recent setbacks in the extradition case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the whistleblower site was handed a victory today regarding payment processing.

Reykjavik's District Court ordered Valitor, formerly Visa Iceland, which handles Visa and MasterCard payments in Iceland, to re-open credit card payments to WikiLeaks within two weeks. If it fails to do so, Valitor face daily penalties of 800,000 Icelandic krona (about $6,200), WikiLeaks said in a statement.

PayPal followed suit, refusing to process WikiLeaks donations because its terms of service prohibited the support of illegal activity.

Last month, Datacell sued Valitor over the move, prompting today's ruling. WikiLeaks has also asked the European Commission to investigate the issue. Similar lawsuits remain active in Denmark and Belgium.

"One by one those involved in the attempted censorship of WikiLeaks will find themselves on the wrong side of history," Assange warned in a statement.

WikiLeaks said the credit-card blockade resulted in a 95 percent drop in donations, or $20 million.

"This is a significant victory against Washington's attempt to silence WikiLeaks," Assange said.

"We will not be silenced," he continued. "Economic censorship is censorship. It is wrong."

Visa Inc. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The payment blocks caught the attention of hackers, prompting various attacks on the Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal websites after the shutdown.

Stephanie began as a PCMag reporter in May 2012. She moved to New York City from Frederick, Md., where she worked for four years as a multimedia reporter at the second-largest daily newspaper in Maryland. She interned at Baltimore magazine and graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (in the town of Indiana, in the state of Pennsylvania) with a degree in journalism and mass communications.
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